


Like Father

by greatveiledbear



Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: Bad Parenting, Cycle of Abuse, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Rated Teen for some mild language and heavy themes, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 21:30:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12992919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greatveiledbear/pseuds/greatveiledbear
Summary: There's a difference between being evil and being a bad person. It's hard to realize you might be the latter.





	Like Father

Heinz already has a headache building when he and Vanessa return from a fairly disastrous grocery expedition. Seeing his lab in shambles, covered in soap bubbles and spaghetti, does not help. 

“What the heck happened here?” he asks, not really expecting an answer. Either an inator has malfunctioned or—

“I’m sorry, Sir,” says Norm, tromping into the room with both hands full of paper towels. “I was trying to make dinner and I failed.”

Heinz pinches the bridge of his nose. His head is throbbing. “Really, Norm? You can’t even do one thing right, can you?”

“Dad,” says Vanessa reproachfully as Norm looks away. 

He ignores her. “You know what, I don’t even want to look at you. Go to the closet and stay there.”

Norm does not visibly emote. He never does. Yet somehow he looks anxious. “But, sir—“

“Go!”

Norm hesitates only a fraction of a second before obeying. He shuts the door on himself and Heinz sighs. 

“You could be nicer to him,” Vanessa says. 

Heinz sets down his grocery bags on a dry table. “Grab the mop, honey, would you?”

“Dad, I’m serious.” Vanessa crosses her arms. “You should be nicer to Norm. He’s just a kid.”

Heinz gets out the mop and bucket. “Don’t be silly. He’s a robot. He doesn’t have feelings.”

“He _does_ have feelings. And he thinks he’s your son.” Vanessa frowns. “Is that why you act like Grandma Doofenshmirtz?”

Heinz almost breaks the mop in half. “I do _not_ act like your grandma!”

“You kind of do,” says Vanessa. “You’re always putting him down and threatening to turn him into a toaster and stuff.” Her frown deepens. “You’ve never said anything like that to me.”

“Well, duh.” Heinz rolls his eyes. “You’re my daughter. And you’re way smarter than that glorified tin can. I don’t even know why I built him. Some natural enemy of the platypus _he_ turned out to be.” He mops all the pasta onto one patch of floor. “Can’t even clean a lab properly,” he mutters. “Stupid hunk of metal.”

Vanessa is silent for a moment. “Wow,” she says at last. “Okay. I’m going back to Mom’s.” 

“No, don’t leave!” says Heinz hurriedly. “Don’t you want to wait till your mom picks you up? I’ve got Parcheesi!”

Vanessa shakes her head. “I have homework. I’ll just take the bus. See you next week, Dad.” She raises her voice. “Norm, you’re welcome at my house any time.” 

“Thanks, sis!” Norm says loudly from the closet, and Heinz winces. He always forgets Norm can hear what he says from there. 

Vanessa leaves and the lab suddenly looks pitiful. The soap suds are slowly dissipating, and the pasta is mostly contained, but the space is too big with only Heinz to fill it. 

His headache stabs him behind the eyes and he groans. “Norm, get out here and clean this up,” he calls, rubbing his forehead. “I’m going to take a nap.”

The closet door opens and Norm emerges, smile fixed as ever. “Yes, Dad. And then can we play catch?”

“I’m not your father, and no we can’t,” snaps Heinz as he heads for his room. “And don’t mess up this time!” he yells as an afterthought. 

***

There’s something about Norm that bothers Heinz. 

Maybe it’s the way the robot almost never stops smiling. The way his voice never wavers or gets any less cheerful, even when he’s desperate for affection. 

Maybe it’s the desperation itself. 

It’s so—irritating. So persistent and infuriating that Heinz wants to take the squirrel out of Norm’s chest sometimes and let it loose, just so the feeling he gets when Norm is around will go away. 

He’s not sure yet what the feeling is, but he doesn’t like it. 

It’s not his fault the damn thing decided he was its father. Heinz was supposed to be Norm’s creator, his progenitor, not his _dad_. Like Frankenstein to the monster, not like—

Not like—

It’s easier, sometimes, to think of Norm as it. Norm is not a person. It is Heinz’s responsibility, but it is not a person. 

It is not Heinz’s son. 

***

The headache is gone when Heinz wakes up from his nap, and he putters into the lab in a better mood. The soap and pasta disaster is gone, and he can hear Norm bustling in the kitchen. Probably making muffins. 

“I brought in the mail, Dad!” the robot calls. 

“Not your father!” yells Heinz as he picks up the stack of advertisements and envelopes lying on the nearest table. Junk, junk, bill—ooh, Slushie Dog coupon!—junk, Roger, junk—

Hold up. Heinz shuffles back to the envelope with Roger’s name on it. It’s small and thick, like a greeting card, and the return address is one of those printed stickers with Roger’s name and a picture of the official seal of Danville. Heinz’s address is written in Roger’s secretary’s neat cursive. 

Heinz groans and rips the envelope open. The card inside is a glossy, printed photo of the Doofenshmirtz family back in Gimmelshtump, taken when Roger was little. Mother and Father stand proudly behind a smiling Roger, who has an arm around the elderly Only Son.

Heinz is not in the photo. 

Heinz snarls—a habit left over from his ocelot days—and rips the card in half. He rips the halves in half and drops them to the floor. Whatever stupid family function Roger was inviting him to, whatever holiday he was celebrating, Heinz wants no part in it.

His headache is coming back and he rubs his forehead. There’s a tightness behind his eyes. “God damn it,” he says, trying to push it away. He’s so _sick_ of this, of being fine until his father says something in that cold dismissive tone, until his mother calls, until Roger sends him something so stupid and thoughtless it’s like he didn’t even _notice_ the difference between their childhoods. It’s not even that the family is cruel to Heinz. It’s that they treat him like an afterthought, an accessory, a _lawn gnome_. He will never be anything but a lawn gnome to them, ever. 

There’s a crash from the kitchen and Heinz’s head throbs. “Damn it, Norm!” he yells. Ugh, can’t that stupid robot do anything right? He stomps into the kitchen, ready to give it a dressing-down, just in time to see Norm flinch at his arrival. 

Heinz stops. 

He wonders when he stopped flinching like that when his father came near. Probably after being conditioned not to, when he was trained to stand perfectly still in the yard as a lawn gnome. Months of suppressing the instinct to flinch, which was easier when his limbs were dulled with cold.

He wonders when he stopped being scared that Vanessa would flinch from him.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” says the robot. “My hands were made for destruction, not for holding muffin pans.” It picks up the pan it dropped and sets it on the counter.

Made for destruction.

It’s not a person, it’s a killing machine.

How much difference is there, Heinz wonders, between being a killing machine and a lawn gnome? 

“Sir?” says Norm, a hint of concern in his cheerfully expressionless eyes. 

Heinz blinks and snaps out of his daze. “You know what, don’t worry about it,” he mutters, waving a hand. “Just try to keep it down, all right? I’m going to go work.”

“Okay!” says Norm, picking up his mixing bowl. “I’ll let you know when the muffins are done!” 

“Yeah, you do that,” says Heinz, slouching out of the room. He wanders off and tinkers with his latest inator, but his mind is too cloudy to really get anything done.

***

Three days later, Perry the Platypus bursts through the window, flips off the wall, and trips over the pile of parenting manuals on the desk. He brushes himself off and gives Heinz a perplexed look. 

“Perry the Platypus, I had those organized!” Heinz picks the books up and re-stacks them. “I don’t have time for evil today, you’ll have to come back later. I’m taking Norm and Vanessa to the park.” 

Perry’s eyes widen in surprise.

“I know, I know, it’s weird.” Heinz sighs. “You’re probably here because of the baseball bats, right? Can’t buy anything these days without OWCA sending you over to investigate. Anyway, I was going to build a Baseball-Pitchinator, but the whole _taking over the Tri-State Area_ thing wasn’t coming together today, so I decided to make it a family outing instead. Vanessa needs the fresh air anyway, with all that texting and selfie-ing and whatever the kids are doing these days. Anyway, it’s not evil, so you don’t need to stop me, right?” 

Perry shrugs.

“Of course you don’t. Hey, Perry the Platypus, can you help me get this Baseball-Pitchinator to the car? I’d make Norm do it, but he’s waiting for me at the park.” Heinz hefts the machine, which is slightly larger than a microwave, into his arms and nods towards the hall. “Just get the doors for me, would you?” 

Perry walks over and opens the door.

“Thanks,” says Heinz, carrying the Pitchinator past him. “You know, I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection lately. Checked out a lot of self-help books from the library and did some reading over the weekend. Could you get that too?” 

Perry jumps up and hits the button for the elevator and Heinz nods. “Thanks,” he says. 

They get into the elevator and Heinz continues. “Anyway, I found this term. Cycle of abuse. And it got me thinking, you know, about how I—about how I act, sometimes. I don’t—I want to—” He hesitates. “I want to break it,” he says finally. 

There’s a long pause, broken at last by the elevator dinging as it reaches the garage. 

Heinz clears his throat. “So yeah,” he says as they walk across the garage. “I want to be evil, but I don’t want to be a bad _person_ , you know? So I’m going to try.” He glances down as Perry nods. “Thanks for helping, Perry the Platypus. Hey, you want to come to the park with me? I mean, unless you have secret agent stuff to do.”

Perry nods again and Heinz grins. He dumps the Pitchinator in the trunk and the two get into the car. Heinz feels a ripple of trepidation as he starts the engine. He doesn’t want to change, because changing is effort and it’s easier to just pretend he’s fine as he is. But he can’t unsee that picture on Roger’s card, and he can’t un-realize that he’s turning into his father. The only thing he can do is try to be better.

He drives away towards his kids.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to elaborate on some stuff that came up in Family Reunions. Finals? What finals?


End file.
